I’ve been thinking a fair bit about beige undies. Strange as that may seem given the multitude of other more interesting, more pressing things one should be thinking about when life is about to significantly change.

There’s a list…well pages and pages of lists and instructions and power points and maps and language texts. And there’s been interviews and 4 day seminars and vaccinations and doctors visits and getting passport photos. It’s been a busy 5 months.

Heading off for a year with VSA to Timor Leste and all that might entail, the actual changes that are about to occur seem to be on my mind a fair bit. There will be no oven, no washing machine, no hot water. There will be high temperatures, high humidity, bugs that fly and bite. Crocodiles. Although the locals say it’s only the very bad who get eaten…not the unlucky.We’ll start not knowing the language, the food, the people. And yet there’s something more tangible that encapsulates how I’m feeling, and it’s the undies.

You see, my completely black Wellington wardrobe is being left behind in favour of “gasp” white dresses and floral prints.A fair few pale blue skirts and a handful of fawn t-shirts. Black’s the colour of mourning in Timor Leste and I’m preparing to leave it all behind.

Here’s the thing though, anyone who knows anything will know a white frock looks pretty nasty with visible black bloomers underneath. So there’s been a couple of trips to the local Farmers and half price sales and I’m well stocked now with grundies in all those great sexy shades…beige, off-white, pale pink…and frankly not only are they “meh” in colour but they’re also large and super practical. I think my 86 year old mum has EXACTLY the same ones…I’ve seen them on her clothesline.

We’re here for another week. In our lush apartment in central Wellington, with the oven, the hot water, surrounded by the people we know and love, walking distance to the best ice cream in the world and I’m wearing black everyday. Not in mourning, and not because I’m farewelling my home.

I’m wearing black because come Saturday the 30th March I’ll be shedding my protective skin and stepping out clean, pink, new. Vulnerable. But you can all be sure of one thing, there will be no black in any of my suitcases and I’ll be wearing my beige undies.